01/26/2010

Haiti: Obama's Katrina

The U.S. response to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment. Our operation received virtually no support from any branch of the U.S. government, including the State Department. As we ran out of various supplies we had no means to acquire more. There was no way to transfer patients we were poorly equipped to manage (such as a critically ill newborn with respiratory distress) to a facility where they would get better care. We were heartbroken having to tell patients suffering incredible pain we could not perform their surgery for at least a day.

Even after hearing gunshots outside the hospital, we had no protection for ourselves or our belongings—though we observed that a Jamaican medical team came with armed guards.

All these problems stemmed from ours being an isolated operation, a feature that may work in a humanitarian medical mission but not in a disaster situation. Later, as we were leaving Haiti, we were appalled to see warehouse-size quantities of unused medicines, food and other supplies at the airport, surrounded by hundreds of U.S. and international soldiers standing around aimlessly.